Recovery
by aglarnis
Summary: "Not like they could catch up where they left off, it was rather a different situation. And even through her confused senses she understood this perfectly well." Set in Storybrook, Belle and Rumple have a chance to start all over.


**Hello everybody! This is my first attempt at writing a OUAT fanfic. Well, to be honest, my very first attempt at writing pretty much any kind of fanfic. Please note that English is not my first language. I decided to write in English so I can address more people and it turned out to be fun! And a huge challenge, not to mention. So if you find funny grammar structures or any of that sort, please feel free to let me know and my apologies in andvance. I enjoyed it extremely and I do plan to continue if you're interested :) I hope you'll be entertained! :)**

* * *

Ruby burst into the living room. She didn't bother herself to say anything close to a proper greeting nor a simple "Hi", just sent a judging and blaming look at Gold as she went up to Emma. She was never really fond of the old creep, as she preferred to call him, mainly because of his heartless attitude towards the whole rent thing. She knew he deliberately set the price at its current amount to make them suffer, to make Granny work around-the-clock, to make it hard for them to make ends meet. What did it matter for him? He didn't need that money that was pretty obvious. Ruby often wondered how the hell he could afford things he enjoyed, but then again the Mayor lived in a huge estate as well. They might have had a money printing machine in Gold's basement or something like that.

"I found this" whispered Ruby as she handed over a golden necklace to Emma while turning his back to Gold.

"Where?" Emma asked and took a close look at the delicate piece. It was very light; she could hardly feel anything in her hand. Though all the curtains were drawn close and in the dim sunlight that could manage its way through the thick fabric they could barely see the end of the room, the necklace in her hand was somehow _bright._ Not that it shined or illuminated itself; it was just reflecting more light than, according to the circumstances, it would have been normal. Emma decided to put aside this observation. The warning pressure behind her eyes already promised a headache. _Too long day, too much incidence. _

"On the ground at the back door of his shop," she said the word 'his' as if she was talking about a huge and disgusting insect "trodden in the mud. I just put it in my pocket and as I ran it cleaned itself with the tissues, I suppose."

_Cleaned itself_. _What an interesting choice of words, _Emma thought. _So appropriate. _She ran a finger over the fragile threads of gold that formed three interlocking leaves. Though she had seen much valuable, sometimes priceless jewelry, this one was one of a kind. Even the rings that made up the rest of the necklace had some kind of shape, but it was hardly visible for the eye, especially in such dark room they were in.

"Do you think…" Ruby didn't finish the question. They both knew the answer.

"I'm sure" said Emma as she maneuvered around Ruby and went up to Gold. He was standing at the window looking through a thin line where he parted the curtains. He had been standing like that for more than an hour and it started to freak Emma out. This outer apparent calmness was a fine mask he managed to put on, though his stoned figure gave away his inside fury, tension, awareness and who knows what else was raging inside him. Emma somehow found this forced composure more sinister.

"Do you recognize this?" She asked taking her open hand in front of him. She could swear she saw something in his eyes as he finally looked away from the outside world at the jewel, but it was gone immediately.

"Of course I do, Miss Swan, but you know this already. Why don't you spare both of us the precious time and ask what you want?" His eyes were digging in hers and she hated that she couldn't read a single emotion neither from his face, nor from his eyes.

"Did you give it to her?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"That really doesn't matter, does it?" He was already annoyed, that she could tell. _Great, an emotion._

"Why was it buried in mud behind your shop?" She continued.

"You really don't need me to figure that one out, sheriff."

"Actually I might do. Why don't you tell us what happened back there? Whatever is that you're hiding I…" she couldn't finish because Gold cut in as he leaned closer to her.

"I have my reasons, Miss Swan, but I can assure you that you would know everything, _if you were just willing to open your eyes_" he hissed. Emma realized two things right away: one, that she was not holding the necklace anymore and two, she forgot to breathe. She watched him getting around her and limping towards the door. He sounded… desperate. Almost as if he wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her to wake up like you do with little kids who are already awake but still see the nightmare. Open her eyes for what? That didn't make sense nor did his behavior. Even though she hadn't known him long (for which she praised the lord), she could see that he was very different. She had been aware of that for some time, but now it was obvious. Or maybe it was obvious only for her. The others took it as his usual _rollercoaster, _as Mary Margaret put it. _"Every once in a while he acts like this. When he's in this mood he walks around like he wanted to blow things up but couldn't. It can actually be quite funny when you're out of sight" Mary Margaret giggled like she was sharing a secret. "I guess it's his leg. You know, those injuries can drive one crazy when the weather changes."_ They laughed about that, but as Emma played back his last sentence and recalled his face as he said it merely moments ago, she was sure there was something more than the slow coming of winter. He was so… _out of character. _It was almost like he was… but Emma shooed away that ridiculous thought.

* * *

Mr Gold was heading towards the door of his living room and he could barely see anything else. He was raging inside, throwing chairs and huge mahogany dining tables to the wall and vases and plates that treasures the ear with high-pitched _music_ upon shattering to pieces, and he was screaming and spitting curses and smashing windows with his cane… and in that state of mind he really wished the precious Prince Charming, the all-time-guardian-of-justice would go the hell out of his way.

"I'd rather you move, Mr Nolan. I'm not in the mood for chatting away long hours during which you try to tell me what the right thing to do is. So please…" he motioned with his left hand that held the necklace. He wasn't aware of the fact that his entire right hand holding his cane was white as a result of his strong grasp.

"We should let her rest" said David. Although he was still between Gold and the door, he hesitantly took a small step to the right.

"Ah, there's the rub" said Gold as he turned around to look at all three of them. His voice was low and there was a clear threatening tone hidden behind the calmness. "You see, there's no _we _in this story. There is an _I _and there is a _you_. And I would like the _you_ part of our little group to _leave_ now."

"We must take her to the hospital" said Ruby disregarding his previous statement.

"I am not taking her back there" Gold's voice was suddenly so dark that Emma thought she'd seen the room darken a bit as well. Ruby couldn't force herself to bear his stare, so she looked at Emma and David for help.

"She's right, Gold" Emma stepped towards him. "Isabelle is weak and probably drugged. She won't be able to cope with those injuries she'd got without professional help"

"She doesn't need any help from _there_" Gold's anger was rising and he no longer tried to conceal it. "She needs…" _Me._

"Doctor Whale!" Emma cried. What was she thinking? Talking sense into this man? She might as well try to throw a lasso around the sun to pull it closer during winter. It seemed that Gold was one breath away from starting a massacre with a single cane, but as he raised his eyes to meet Emma's, all she saw was… weariness?

"You have to put up with the fact that it is not an option" he stressed the last words.

"Gold" Emma took a deep breath. She couldn't let herself into raw emotions because then he would win. She had to stay calm. For the girl's sake. But damn, it was so hard with him standing there neglecting the obvious! "She's been shot. Her shoulder's been dislocated. She. Needs. Medical. Attention." _I'm talking to the most dangerous man in town like a little boy who doesn't get that there are no sweets before lunch._

"You don't have to worry about that, Miss Swan." The three of them dropped their jaws at the same time. _Is he stupid, blind or insane?_

"How's that?" David found his voice.

"You really think I was idly sitting beside her waiting for you to arrive?" Gold's voice was once again full of anger and disgust. No, he was not waiting for her to bleed to death either. Something happened there and he needed time and more importantly _space_ to figure out what was it.

"I saw you fixed her shoulder but that can go wrong in so many ways and there's still the…" Emma couldn't finish it because the door to the living room opened. Henry stood there a little bit surprised at all the adults standing and staring at each other like hunter and prey. He could sense the tension.

"She woke up" he said getting into his jacket. "She'd like to see you, Mr Gold." He turned to Emma. "I should go home before Regina finds out that…"

Gold couldn't hear the rest. He had a vague thought of how surprising this little fellow was from the same annoying family, but he let go of that. _Belle was awake! _He was already striding out of the living room past Henry, towards the stairs.

"Gold, we're not finished" said Emma.

"Yes, in fact we are" said Gold turning around for the last time. His tone was so cold and so vicious that none of them would dare to contradict. "And I don't want to see any of you when I come down again. As a matter of fact, I don't want to see you in my house _ever again_. You will leave now and you will keep everything that happened today to yourselves. If ANY of you speaks, if this gets to Regina, you all will have a hard time."

He looked each of them in the eye to see that his words really reached them, then turned on his heels and went up the stairs.

* * *

He knocked silently on the door before entering the room. It was dark in there as well, but he could see a thin figure under the covers and a pale face framed by a lot of hair. She barely opened her eyes and couldn't say anything.

She looked so weak and fragile and helpless. He just wanted to lift all her pain and ease her mind and clear her body from the drugs. He wanted to see the red roses bloom on her face when he praised her, he wanted to hear her laugh and speak and sing. He wanted to pull her in his arms and never let go again, not even for the sake of eating or any of that mundane kind of things. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry and that he loved her all along and that she was right about everything. He wanted to show her to the world, but at the same time he was terrified of so many things that could take her from him again. He wanted to do and feel so much all at once that he suddenly realized he'd been standing in the door for minutes not taking his eyes off her for a single moment.

He closed the door and went up to her bed. There was a vague smile on her face as she looked at him. He poured water in a glass and helped her sip.

"How are you feeling?" He asked softly. He gently pushed a wild curl of brown hair from her face.

She took his hand. "Better now that you're here." Her speech was slow and barely audible.

They stared at each other for long moments, drinking the image. Gold absent-mindedly caressed her hand.

"What happened?" She finally asked.

Gold sat down on her bed and smoothed her frowned forehead. He ran his fingers down on her face then took her hand with both of his.

"We did our best. Especially you, my dear. But that's just how she does things."

"The Queen…" Belle went quiet. She closed her eyes and he just wished he could erase those memories.

"You don't have to fear her anymore. No one can do any harm to you. You are safe now."

She slowly nodded. "Rumple?" Belle opened her eyes and looked at him with a weak, hardly visible smile in the corner of the mouth. It was rather the sign of embarrassment. "Would you…" she didn't really understand how could she possibly think of such nonsense, but answering that would have required much more energy and drug-blocked nerves. She just felt the need, the inevitable urge. "… hold me?" How stupid did that sound! She instantly wished she had never said it, but it was out and she could see she startled him.

His deep brown eyes widened a bit and she saw something in them that made no sense to her. He stood up and without saying a world helped her to sit up. Rumple slid in behind her and careful of her injured shoulder, pulled her on his lap. She rested her head on his shoulder, her face tilted to his neck and she breathed in his scent. Although it was different in this world, it was still… well, very Rumple-ish.

Rumple folded his arms around her and did the same: took long, deep breaths in her hair. He couldn't believe he could finally hold her. He was never able to. Never in the Enchanted Forest and only in his dreams in the past 28 years. And there they were. And it was just… just that simple. She asked him. And it felt more right and more real than anything since ages.

Belle closed her eyes again. She felt safe. Safe, as the deepest meaning of that word could be. Until then she felt like evil eyes had been lurking in the dark, waiting for that very moment when she was the most vulnerable to take her. Waiting for Rumple to come up seemed longer than all those years in that cell. She heard him talking and though she couldn't hear what he was saying, she felt his anger through closed doors. And it was all gone. She would feel his chest going up and down behind her and his breath on her cheek. She couldn't think of anything more natural than his arms around her. He caressed her arm and waist to calm her and it worked like a charm. She was no longer afraid of anything, not there, not in his protective arms. She was still weak and extremely tired, but she could finally shake off the necessity for being strong. He was there now, and he would be strong for her. Not like they could catch up where they left off, it was rather a different situation. And even through her confused senses she understood this perfectly well. She felt such inner peace that was nearly unknown to her as she drifted off forgetting about all her pain.

* * *

Belle didn't dream. In fact, she didn't really sleep either. She was drifting off and back, sometimes she was deep down like people in coma, sometimes her sleep was so superficial that she actually felt fingers on her face. She knew she didn't want to sleep, not now that she was finally together with the only man whose memory kept her more or less sane during the dark days of captivity and the numb weeks when she lost track of days and hours. She wanted to be with him, but then always came something that pulled her back in her deep sleep, almost like a hand keeping someone underwater.

When she opened her eyes, the room was almost completely dark. She was still tired, or rather exhausted, but the numbness was gone. She could hear clearly (_something even and soft in her ear… breathing?_), she felt every inch of her body and skin (_something pleasantly heavy around her waist_) and together with that realization came the pain in her shoulder and leg. Her body twitched in anguish and she bit her lip not to scream. A warm hand turned her face right away and she felt a soft kiss on her forehead. Her thoughts were finally clear but she had to take a deep breath because it was the pain now that threatened her conscious.

"What did you do?" She grasped his hand. "It hurts…hurts so bad." A tear of pain rolled down from her shut eyes. He wiped it away at once and spoke quietly in her ears.

"I cleared up the drugs from your body. That was the only thing I could do, I'm sorry. I can't give you painkillers, because you just got rid of all the toxic…"

She realized his voice was somehow soothing the pain, but she interrupted him anyway. "How did you do it?"

"Apparently I posses some magic in a way. I tried to reach your mind and when you were sleeping it put up less effort to keep me out so I could do what I had to. Sometimes you nearly woke up, but luckily you were, well… actually are pretty tired."

"Not now" she shook her head slightly. His voice did help a lot. It was like cold ointment on burned skin. "At your shop. How did you do it? How did you heal me?"

Rumple looked up at the wall opposite to the bed. That was a very good question. He wanted to figure that one out before she woke up, but the annoying Charming family and that bloody dog just couldn't possibly let him be for a second. He knew one thing: magic was within him again, and it was because of Belle. But this wasn't the kind of magic he had as the Dark One. Far from it, it was weak and way much less, and he couldn't control it. He felt it inside, but as soon as he tried to get a hold of it, it slipped away like water. There was no way he could have wielded it as he wished, in fact, it seemed quite impossible to even focus it on one purpose. And still, he somehow managed to heal Belle. He had the bullet in his hand and he put her shoulder back in place. He just did it, without thinking, and at that point, Emma was right. It could have gone wrong in some many ways. Nevertheless, she was wrong. Because he _knew_ what he was doing and that knowledge came from nowhere. Everything was magic, and Belle brought it with her very self.

"It was because of you" he said, now sure of it. "You gave me back a little bit of my magic."

"What did I do?" A small twitch that ran through her body indicated that he had been silent for too long.

"Nothing" he realized. "You did nothing at all. I must have been in a shock, because of seeing you and then… because of what happened. I felt helpless and I wanted nothing more than to be able to save and heal you, bring you to safety…" he fell quiet as he understood that most probably this was the very first time he opened up to her so much.

"Does this mean…" she tilted her head up and whispered at his clean-shaven jaw "… that I only need to shock you again?" Her words were coming out slowly, full of pain. She had no idea where did the courage and strength come from, but she reached up with her healthy arm and turned his face to hers. He was suddenly so close, so agonizingly _present_,different in many ways from what she had imagined in her dark cell, but still the same man she fell in love with so many years ago. She pressed her palm gently against his face and pulled him closer and closer, inch disappeared after inch between them until his nose reached her face and their mouth were just about to touch. She felt his hot breath on her lips and his racing heart beneath her. For a second, all her pain was gone, she didn't see anything, she just breathed him in as a desperate patient inhales her medicine.

And then he kissed her. Softly on the lips with so much withheld emotion that he could hardly stop his body from shaking. He realized how dry his mouth was as his lips touched hers. Belle's, Belle's who was sick and weak and still had more life in her than he ever had. He gently parted her lips and she let him in instantly. She was sweet (_dear God, just as sweet as he remembered_) and her touch and taste made him dizzy. He found her tongue and at the very moment they slipped through to each other's mouth, Rumplestiltskin felt the magic. Not in a way he felt it moments ago, but like before the curse. It didn't creep back, it was just there again. She did it. She did it again. Belle broke his curse. He tightened his grasp around her, pulled her even closer to him and deepened the kiss. He explored every little inch in her and felt her fingers digging into his hair than sliding down to the nape of his neck and pulling him more into her.

He freed his left hand and put it above her left shoulder. After a moment she pulled away in a surprised awe and looked at his hand in the dark. It was gone. The pain was gone! She wanted to say a thousand words, but she was speechless. Partly because of the relief, partly because of _him_. She was watching his face as he reached under the covers, towards the gunshot wound. She just realized how embarrassingly high up on her thigh that wound was. But again, this feeling was gone together with the pain in her leg.

She gasped and when he turned his head to look at her, Rumple found two painfully beautiful eyes, filled with unshed tears and so much admiration that his heart stopped for a moment.

"You…" she tried, but had to blink away the tears that were about to fall.

"No." He said in the most endearing, loving voice she had ever heard. "It was you and I am the one who should say thank." He obliviously put down his hand on her thigh.

Her heart started to beat out of sync and she just knew this was too much. With a healthy body his closeness was nearly unbearable, and her happiness inexpressible. She felt way too tired to handle all this.

He must have noticed it (_how did he know?_) and lifted her body up with ease to put her down next to him. Rumple pulled the cover up on her and she caught his hand. "Please don't go." Her voice was full of anxiety and he didn't like that a bit.

"I'm not going anywhere, my love." He said, lying down next to her. She instantly crawled up to him, her head on his shoulder once again. He folded his arms around her and pulled her close, so close he could feel her heart beating in her chest. "I'm not going anywhere" he repeated softly as he started to caress her hair and with every touch she drifted further into sleep.


End file.
